Çerkez Tavuğu

Çerkez tavuğu is shredded poached chicken bound in a walnut-and-bread sauce and drizzled with red paprika oil. It's a Circassian dish, brought into Ottoman kitchens by the Circassian community that settled across Anatolia, and absorbed so thoroughly into Turkish tables since that it now reads as a standard meze rather than a dish with a specific outside origin.

What it actually is

Chicken is poached whole or in pieces until tender, and the poaching broth is kept rather than discarded. The meat is shredded fine by hand, and a sauce of ground walnuts, soaked bread, garlic and some of the reserved broth is blended until smooth and thick, then worked through the shredded chicken until every strand is coated. The whole mound is finished with a drizzle of bright red oil, coloured by paprika gently warmed in it.

The bread in the sauce isn't a shortcut filler — it's what keeps the walnut sauce from turning heavy or gritty, giving it the same smooth body as a good hummus or baba ganoush.

How it's served

• Cold or at room temperature, mounded on a plate, the red paprika oil pooling around the edges.
• As part of a meze spread, alongside other cold starters.
• With bread on the side, for scooping rather than eating with a fork alone.

Writing it on a menu

• Flag walnuts clearly; the entire sauce is built on them, not a garnish sprinkle.
• Note the gluten in the bread used to thicken the sauce, since it's easy to overlook in a dish that reads as mainly chicken and walnut.
• Mention that it's served cold; a guest expecting a warm chicken dish should know this one is deliberately chilled.
• Say if you make the walnut sauce fresh, since a properly smooth version takes real blending time and is worth naming as a point of care.